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Top ICE lawyer charged with stealing immigrants' identities
By Susan McFarland
Feb. 14, 2018

(UPI) -- A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney has resigned and faces federal charges he stole immigrants' identities and used the information to get credit cards.

Raphael Sanchez, ICE's chief counsel in Seattle, Wash., was charged with wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

Along with stealing identities, he is accused of defrauding creditors in the scam, which allegedly took place for four years -- from roughly October 2013 to October 2017.

A court document shows Sanchez is accused of stealing the identities of seven people involved in immigration proceedings and then pilfering from American Express, Bank of America, Capital One, Citibank, Discover and JPMorgan Chase.

"Sanchez devised and intended to devise a scheme .... Using the personally identifying information of seven aliens in various stages of immigration proceedings with the United States Immigrant and Customs Enforcement to obtain money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses," according to the court document.

A Justice Department spokesperson said Sanchez resigned Monday, the day he was charged.

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White House approves use of force, some law enforcement roles for border troops


The Trump administration this week moved allow troops to act in law-enforcement capacities, including using lethal force, along the US-Mexico border in an order that may represent a move toward longstanding practice.
The White House late Tuesday signed a memo allowing troops stationed at the border to engage in some law enforcement roles and use lethal force, if necessary — a move that legal experts have cautioned may run afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act.
The new “Cabinet order” was signed by White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, not President Donald Trump. It allows “Department of Defense military personnel” to “perform those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary” to protect border agents, including “a show or use of force (including lethal force, where necessary), crowd control, temporary detention. and cursory search.”
 

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Trump is acting tough and I dont blame him to be honest. He is securing the country and doing what is in the benefit of his people. He should not stop there I think he should extend help to Valenzuela and Mexico to overcome their economic difficulties. Look at Europe after the wave of immigrants.
 

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Immigration accounted for almost half of U.S. growth in 2018
By Paul Brinkmann

Immigration-accounted-for-almost-half-of-US-growth-in-2018.jpg

Map shows states with highest levels of international migration in darker green shades. Map generated by US Census Bureau website tools.

April 22 (UPI) -- People moving from other countries made up almost half of the U.S. population growth in 2018, according to estimates released by the U.S. census.
The entire nation added a little over 2 million people in 2018, with 1.04 million of that number coming from "natural increase" or the number of births over deaths.

Another 978,826 people moved to the 50 states, and a lot of them were from Puerto Rico. The still-recovering island lost 129,848 in population in the past year, according to census data released last week.

Texas and Florida made up fully one-third of the United States' population gain. Texas' population grew by 379,128, while Florida's grew by 322,000 in 2018.

RELATED Medium-sized cities outpace growth in big metros, census report says

New York and Illinois lost the greatest population over the past year, with drops of 48,510 and 45,116, respectively. West Virginia and Louisiana also saw considerable drops, at 11,216 and 10,840, respectively.

Many U.S. residents still are moving to Florida, resulting in net domestic migration gain of 132,603. But international growth was higher, including U.S. citizens from Puerto Rico, at 175,670.

For such a large state, Florida's natural increase is low at 13,323, partly because of the high number of retirees who move to there. The Sunshine State saw 221,488 births and 208,165 deaths. Texas had 391,451 births and 200,500 deaths, for a natural increase of 190,951.

RELATED Sanders: White House 'reviewing' plan to send detained immigrants to sanctuary cities

Among large metros, Dallas-Fort Worth had the largest numeric growth with a gain of 131,767 (1.8 percent) in 2018, followed by Phoenix with an increase of 96,268 (2.0 percent).

The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metroplex stands out because it also is losing residents to other regions at a rapidly growing rate as it struggles with traffic congestion and high housing costs.

Miami-Dade, the state's largest county, had a decrease of 51,671 in domestic migration -- people moving to other parts of Florida or the United States.

RELATED Appeals court temporarily allows return of asylum seekers to Mexico

But that was more than offset by an international migration boost of 58,732 and natural increase of 9,407.

Broward County, just north of Miami-Dade, showed an accelerating trend toward people moving out, with domestic migration loss of 10,337. With births, deaths and international migration Broward eked out some overall growth at 16,789 people.

New York's largest county, or borough -- Brooklyn -- is booming economically but saw the population drop by 13,555. Another older urban area with high costs, Brooklyn had negative domestic migration of 46,706 people, while 12,424 moved in from other countries or Puerto Rico.

Palm Beach County was the only area of South Florida that had positive domestic migration, at 3,661. With 12,706 new international arrivals, overall growth was 15,603 people.

A Wall Street Journal analysis of census data released Thursday said about one in 10 U.S. counties grew in the fiscal year that ended last June primarily because of immigration, showing how new arrivals are shaping the nation as the population ages and the birth rate slows.

The Orlando area in Florida mostly boomed, but the most urban part of it, Orange County, showed a loss in domestic migration of 202 people. Births and international migration boosted its population by 27,712.

Osceola County to the south of Orlando has had large influxes of Hispanic people. The county grew by 4.3 percent in 2018, the seventh-fastest rate in the nation. It added 4,385 in domestic migration and 8,862 in international for total growth of 15,329 and total population of 367,990.

Immigration accounted for almost half of U.S. growth in 2018
 

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APRIL 30, 2019
Trump gives immigration officials 90 days to implement stricter asylum rules
By Darryl Coote

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President Donald Trump issued his second memorandum in two weeks for officials to clamp down on migrants entering the United States through Mexico. Photo by Leigh Vogel/UPI | License Photo

April 30 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump directed immigration officials to apply new strict regulations on migrants attempting to enter the United States via the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a memorandum for the Attorney General William Barr and the Department of Homeland Security, Trump gave them 90 days to implement measures to ensure that all asylum seekers are processed within 180 days of filing, institute a fee for asylum applications and for employment permits and prohibit migrants who have previously entered or attempted to enter the United States illegally from gaining employment permits before any application for relief or protection from removal has been granted.

"The purpose of this memorandum is to strengthen asylum procedures to safeguard our system against rampant abuse of our asylum process," Trump said in the memo.

Trump said since he declared a national emergency at the U.S southern border Feb. 15 the humanitarian crisis there has worsened.

"The emergency continues to grow increasingly severe," he said in the memo. "In March, more than 100,000 inadmissible aliens were encountered seeking entry into the United States."

He said illicit organizations such as drug cartels and smugglers benefit financially from smuggling migrants into the country and their actions further encourage abuse of the system.

"This strategic exploitation of our nation's humanitarian programs undermines our nation's security and sovereignty," he said.

It is the second memorandum from Trump in as many weeks, as on April 22 he directed secretaries of state and Homeland Security to find ways to limit visa overstays, the Washington Post reported.

Trump's Monday memo follows Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahanearlier in the day approving to send an additional 320 military troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump gives immigration officials 90 days to implement stricter asylum rules
 

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APRIL 29, 2019
320 more troops to be sent to U.S. southern border
By Darryl Coote
320-more-troops-to-be-sent-to-US-southern-border.jpg

The Pentagon said that while the U.S. 320 additional troops will interact with migrants they won't be performing any law enforcement functions. Photo by Justin Hamel/UPI | License Photo

April 29 (UPI) -- Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan approved Monday to send an additional 320 military troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to provide humanitarian support, the Department of Defense said.

"DoD personnel will assist in driving high-capacity [Customs and Border Protection] vehicles to transport migrants; providing administrative support, including providing heating, meal distribution and monitoring the welfare of individuals in CBP custody and attorney support to [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Jamie Davis said in a statement.

Davis said the deployment of roughly 320 personnel will last until Sept. 30 at an estimated cost of $7.4 million.
The are presently some 3,000 active-duty troops and 2,000 national Guardsmen deployed to the border.

The Trump administration has long requested additional assistance to combat what it describes as a humanitarian crisis occurring at American's southern border. In February, President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency in order to secure funds denied him in a spending bill by Congressional Democrats to build physical barriers along the wall.

Then in March, former Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen wroteCongress an "urgent request" for the authority to deport unaccompanied minors and for more resources to deal with the increasing volume of migrants that was creating "a system-wide meltdown."

Monday's approval, however, goes against a 2006 policy that prohibits military personnel from interacting with migrants.

The Trump administration first broke precedent by waiving the policy earlier to allow the military to provide migrants with medical care, the Washington Post reported.

In his Monday statement, Davis said military, lawyers, cooks and drivers would be dealing with migrants entering the country and the additional personnel would not perform law enforcement functions.

"In any situation that requires DoD personnel to be in proximity to migrants, [Department of Homeland Security] personnel will be present to conduct all custodial and law enforcement functions, and provide force protection of military personnel," Davis said.

Meanwhile, Trump took to Twitter Monday night and called Mexico "one of the more dangerous countries in the world" and that the "march" of migrants into the United States "must stop."

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1123033559802023936

The Coyotes and Drug Cartels are in total control of the Mexico side of the Southern Border. They have labs nearby where they make drugs to sell into the U.S. Mexico, one of the most dangerous country’s in the world, must eradicate this problem now. Also, stop the MARCH to U.S.

90.1K

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41.3K people are talking about this

"If the Democrats don't give us the votes to change our weak, ineffective and dangerous immigration laws, we must fight hard for these votes in the 2020 Election!" he said.


320 more troops to be sent to U.S. southern border
 

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Trump Orders Asylum Reforms, Including Application Fee
April 30, 2019

U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking changes to the country's asylum system, including a proposal to charge a fee for asylum applications, as his administration tries to stop a recent rise in the number of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.

In a memo on Monday, Trump asked the attorney general and the head of the Department of Homeland Security to come up with four regulations within 90 days.

They include:

* Requiring a fee to apply for asylum and the work permit allowed while a case is being reviewed.

* Denying work permits to asylum-seekers who enter — or attempt to enter — the country unlawfully; that could mean restricting asylum-seekers to declare themselves at ports of entry, as the Homeland Security Advisory Council recommended earlier this month.

* Requiring the government to decide on asylum cases within six months. The process currently takes, on average, more than two years.

* Creating a separate path within immigration court for asylum cases. As is stands, asylum-seekers present themselves before an immigration judge and can avail themselves of any other immigration benefit to which they could be legally entitled; this regulation would limit the decision-making to a yes or no strictly on asylum, and eliminate the ability for asylum-seekers to seek other options at that time.

Reaction from critics

Trump's memo also calls for Homeland Security officials to reassign personnel in order to process "credible fear" claims, one of the starting points for asylum-seekers to make their case to U.S. officials.

Testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday, acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan, who this month took over leadership after Kirstjen Nielsen resigned, supported the idea of encouraging more asylum claims at legal border crossings.

"We would like to increase capacity to process people presenting lawfully, even if they don't have documents, at ports of entry," he told lawmakers.

U.S. Rep. Lucille Roybal-Allard, who heads the subcommittee that questioned McAleenan, said Tuesday that "simply making it harder to claim asylum in the United States is not the answer."

Human Rights First warned that Trump's proposed regulations risk "rushing cases through the system."

"Yet again, the Trump Administration is attempting to trample on the law when it doesn't line up with its hard-line immigration policies," a statement from the human rights organization read.

Delayed implementation

The Trump administration has implemented multiple policies and strategies at the border, some of which are facing legal challenges, at a time when an increasing number of families entering without authorization.

Unlike some of Trump's immigration-related executive orders, the latest proposed regulatory changes will not be immediate — the process for establishing new regulations can take years, and will be open to public comment.

U.S. border agents have apprehended more than 100,000 people at the southwestern border this fiscal year, about double the number at this point in 2018, with a particular rise in the number of parents traveling with young children.

Many of those traveling through Mexico to seek entry into the United States are coming from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala, and their reasons for doing so vary.

Motivators can include reasons people want to leave their home country (violence, persecution, economic insecurity, natural disaster) or want to come to the United States (to join family, seek safety or asylum, earn more money), and policies in the U.S. and Latin America.

 

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New Mexico Opens State Migrant Shelter, Criticizes Federal Inaction
April 30, 2019

TAOS, NEW MEXICO —
New Mexico's state fairgrounds will begin to house migrant families to take pressure off border cities facing a surge in asylum seekers with no help from the federal government, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham said on Tuesday.

Dormitories at state-run Expo New Mexico in Albuquerque will provide temporary accommodation to several dozen migrants, becoming one of the largest migrant shelters in the state, said a joint statement from the governor and Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, both Democrats.

Lujan Grisham has called for a humanitarian response to the rise in asylum seekers, condemning a "charade of fear-mongering" by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has variously warned of a migrant "crisis" and "invasion" at the country's southern border with Mexico.

"The federal government has not provided shelter or timely adjudication at the border leaving migrants without any means to make arrangements to get to their sponsors or family members in the United States," the statement said.

Migrant shelters in border cities like El Paso, Texas, and Las Cruces, New Mexico, are at or near capacity as record numbers of mainly Central American families cross the border to seek asylum.

The mayors of New Mexico's three largest cities - Las Cruces, Albuquerque and Santa Fe - have offered resources to help charities and faith-based organizations care for migrants after they are dropped off by U.S. immigration authorities.

"Burqueños (Albuquerque residents) of every faith, ethnicity, and background have come together where the federal government has failed, to make sure the asylum seekers traveling legally through our community have the basic needs of human dignity met," Keller said in the statement.

Las Cruces has received over 2,400 migrants since the U.S. Border Patrol began to release them directly to shelters on April 12, said Claudia Tristan, a spokeswoman for Lujan Grisham.

The Expo Center will absorb the cost of housing migrants in its existing operating budget, Tristan said.

Faith-based and charity organizations will continue to provide food, medical services and transportation to migrants, who will spend a night or two at the center before traveling on to final destinations in the United States, the statement said.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said her agency would work with El Paso's Annunciation House migrant organization to coordinate transportation of migrants to the Expo Center.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which runs the U.S. Border Patrol, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

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US Border Patrol to Fingerprint More Migrant Children
April 27, 2019

HOUSTON —
U.S. border authorities say they’ve started to increase the biometric data they take from children 13 years old and younger, including fingerprints, despite privacy concerns and government policy intended to restrict what can be collected from migrant youths.

A Border Patrol official said this week that the agency had begun a pilot program to collect the biometrics of children with the permission of the adults accompanying them, though he did not specify where along the border it has been implemented.

The Border Patrol also has a “rapid DNA pilot program” in the works, said Anthony Porvaznik, the chief patrol agent in Yuma, Arizona, in a video interview published by the Epoch Times newspaper.

Spokesmen for the Border Patrol and the Department of Homeland Security did not return several messages from The Associated Press seeking comment on both programs.

'Kids that are being rented'

The Border Patrol says that in the last year, it’s stopped roughly 3,100 adults and children fraudulently posing as families so they can be released into the U.S. quickly rather than face detention or rapid deportation.

The Department of Homeland Security has also warned of “child recycling,” cases where they say children allowed into the U.S. were smuggled back into Central America to be paired up again with other adults in fake families — something they say is impossible to catch without fingerprints or other biometric data.

“Those are kids that are being rented, for lack of a better word,” Porvaznik said.

But the Border Patrol has not publicly identified anyone arrested in a “child recycling” scheme or released data on how many such schemes have been uncovered. Advocates say they’re worried that in the name of stopping fraud, agents might take personal information from children that could be used against them later.

“Of course child trafficking exists,” said Karla Vargas, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project. But she warned against implementing “a catch-all” policy that could reduce the rights of people who are legally seeking asylum.

At a round table with President Donald Trump broadcast in February, one Border Patrol official described a case he said led to eight indictments in South Carolina, including of a Guatemalan woman who said she had “recycled” children 13 times for payments of $1,500 a child. The U.S. attorney’s office in South Carolina told the AP this week that case was sealed and declined to comment on it.

The numbers of unauthorized border crossings are surging this year, with new records being set monthly for the number of families entering the U.S. outside legal points of entry. Most are from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, and many adults and children who cross seek asylum under U.S. law.

The Border Patrol has warned that its holding facilities are past capacity and that it doesn’t have the staff or resources to detain migrants. It will soon open two tent facilities at the Texas border for processing and detention, and immigration agencies are releasing families within a day or two to clear detention space.

Facing pressure from Trump to reduce illegal crossings, Homeland Security officials have blamed the high numbers partly on adults posing as parents to avoid detention.

Not a parent, but a relative

In one case filed in federal court in El Paso this month, authorities accused a Guatemalan man of having a fake birth certificate printed that claimed he was the father of a teenager who crossed the border illegally with him. Authorities say the teen agreed to go with the man because he wanted to leave Guatemala. They could not confirm the teen’s age.

But advocates say the Border Patrol regularly cites fraud when it separates a child from an adult relative who isn’t a parent, even if the relative is the child’s effective guardian.

The Texas Civil Rights Project published a study in February that counted 272 separated families at a single Texas courthouse since June, after the official end of the zero-tolerance policy that led to thousands of family separations earlier in 2018. Of those, 234 involved adult siblings, aunts and uncles, or other relatives of the children.

DHS regulations say the department can require the fingerprints of anyone entering the country illegally, but those regulations exempt anyone under 14.

Permission to fingerprint

Porvaznik, the chief agent in Yuma, Arizona, told the Epoch Times that under the pilot program agents can fingerprint children under 14 “if we get permission from the adult that they’re with.”

However, legal experts say that interpretation can be challenged in court.

“DHS may claim that they can get around this bar by getting parental permission, but that interpretation is subject to court challenge,” Cornell law professor Stephen Yale-Loehr said. “To do this legally, DHS needs to go through the rulemaking process to change the regulation.”

Vargas of the Texas Civil Rights Project said she often spoke to immigrant parents who had signed paperwork they didn’t fully understand.

“It’s never presented to immigrants as, ‘You have a choice of whether or not to sign this,’” Vargas said.

Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a researcher at George Mason University, said that while she has doubts about the expanded data collection, it could have an “unintended positive outcome.”

“It will be easier to conduct investigations related to trafficking of migrant children, kidnapping or other crimes that affect this vulnerable segment of the migrant population,” she said.

 

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Unaccompanied migrant teen dies while in U.S. custody
May 1, 2019
By Daniel Uria
Unaccompanied-migrant-teen-dies-while-in-US-custody.jpg
A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services photo shows rooms inside the facility at Casa Padre Shelter, in Brownsville, Texas. An HHS official said that a 16-year-old boy died while in U.S. custody after becoming ill while at a Texas shelter. Photo by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/EPA


May 1 (UPI) -- An unaccompanied migrant teenager died while in the custody of the U.S. government in Texas on Tuesday, Department of Health and Human Services officials said.

The 16-year-old boy died in a children's hospital's intensive care unit after he received treatment for an unspecified illness beginning April 22, HHS spokeswoman Evelyn Stauffer said in an emailed statement to UPI.

"The cause of death is currently under review and, in accordance with standard [Office of Refugee Resettlement] policies and procedures, the case will be subject to a full review," Stauffer said.

The child was transferred to an ORR center by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on April 20 and clinicians observed no health concerns nor did the child report any himself upon arriving at the shelter, Stauffer said.

The next morning the boy became "noticeably ill," exhibiting fever, chills and a headache and shelter personnel brought him to a hospital emergency department where he was treated and released back to the shelter.

His condition did not improve after being returned to the shelter and he was taken to another hospital emergency department the morning of April 22, before being transferred to the intensive care unit.

Stauffer added that arrangements were made for the boy's brother and Guatemalan consular officials to visit him while he was hospitalized and that his family received "frequent updates" from hospital staff about his condition.

 

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Judge gives U.S. 6 months to identify children separated at border
By Clyde Hughes
April 26, 2019
Judge-gives-US-6-months-to-identify-children-separated-at-border.jpg

Migrant children stand near the Benito Juarez shelter in Tijuana, Mexico, on November 27. File Photo by Ariana Drehsler/UPI | License Photo

April 26 (UPI) -- A federal judge in California is giving the Trump administration six months to go through nearly 50,000 records and identify all migrant children who were separated from their families by U.S. authorities at the border.

San Diego Judge Dana Sabraw informed government attorneys of the time frame at a hearing Thursday. The order is the result of a class-action lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of migrant families who were detained after crossing into the United States.

A government report in January said many children were believed to have been separated in 2017, long before the administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy began in early 2018. While nearly all adults faced criminal charges, the children were taken to separate shelters or placed in foster care, often in different locations.

Sabraw said he wants the administration to complete the identification process in six months -- a process the government said would take two years.

"The goal is to produce an accurate counting in as short of time as humanly possible to deliver an accurate counting," Public Health Service Commissioned Corps commander Jonathan White said.

The ACLU argued the process can be done in less than two years and urged the judge to push the government on the deadline.

"This order shows that the court continues to recognize the gravity of this situation," Lee Gelent, deputy director of the ACLU's immigrant rights project, said in a statement.

Administration officials have said it would be difficult to identify children who've been released from detention. They've also noted that U.S. Customs and Border Protection didn't start tracking separated families in a searchable database until about a year ago.


 

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Homeland Security to seek more funding to handle border crossings
April 30, 2019
By Danielle Haynes
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Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan listens to opening statements prior to testifying before a House subcommittee on Tuesday. Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI | License Photo



April 30 (UPI) -- Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan on Tuesday said his department plans to ask Congress for more money to deal with an influx of migrants along the southern border with Mexico.

Speaking to a House appropriations subcommittee, he said the funds are needed to create temporary migrant processing facilities and to pay for more workers.

"Given the scale of what we are facing, we will exhaust our resources before the end of this fiscal year," McAleenan told lawmakers in his first testimony on Capitol Hill.

The request comes as U.S. border officials warn that the number of people who either present themselves to authorities at legal ports of entry or are detained by Border Patrol agents could reach 1 million by the end of the fiscal year in September. In March, Border Patrol agents apprehended 92,607 people, a 38 percent increase over February 2019 and a nearly three-fold increase over the same month in 2018.

Despite the increases during Trump's first two years in office, undocumented immigration numbers are still down from figures in previous decades. Border apprehensions reached a peak of 1.6 million in 2000 and have been on a decline, reaching a low of 327,577 since then.

At Tuesday's hearing, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said she was concerned about migrants being treated inhumanely as they waited to be processed at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.

"To bake them and their children in the broiling sun and not let them use the bathroom and treat them like animals rather than people is unacceptable and it must be fixed," she said.

McAleenan said he plans to ask Congress to be able to legally keep families with children in custody pending immigration hearings instead of releasing them into the interior to await future court dates. U.S. law limits how long immigration officials can keep children in custody.

"The way that we are actually achieving results is when we are able to detain somebody in custody through the pendency of their immigration proceedings," he said. "That's what works with single adults right now, and that's an essential aspect of what we are going to ask from Congress for families -- being able to keep them together in an appropriate setting for a fair and expeditious process."

McAleenan's testimony came one day after President Donald Trump directed immigration officials to apply strict new regulations on migrants attempting to enter the United States. He requested that all asylum seekers are processed within 180 of filing and that they pay a fee for applications and employment permits.

"This strategic exploitation of our nation's humanitarian programs undermines our nation's security and sovereignty," he said in a memorandum.


 

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Homeland Security steps up use of biometrics data on border
By Clyde Hughes
May 02, 2019
Homeland-Security-steps-up-use-of-biometrics-data-on-border.jpg

U.S. border patrol agents detain a group just 500 yards north of the Mexican border in Hidalgo, Texas, in January. Homeland Security announced Wednesday that it will use biometrics data more to confirm families crossing the border. Photo by Ken Cedeno/UPI | License Photo


May 2 (UPI) -- The Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday it was increasing the use of biometric data such as DNA testing to crack down on adult migrants posing as "fake families" with unaccompanied children crossing the United States' southern border.

The Trump administration said that the measures are needed to stop alleged child smuggling among the recent spike in Central American immigrants coming to the border asking for asylum.

Homeland Security officials said the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials would test suspected fraudulent families with the consent of the immigrants. Officials said adults would swab their own cheeks, and then that of their children. They added that the test would be destroyed after the results are known.

The so-called Rapid DNA test takes about 90 minutes, CNN reported.

"This is part of a larger investigative process," said Derek Benner, deputy director of ICE. "This is not screenings, this is not just random application of this, this is a pilot designed to assess the usefulness of this technology in an investigative process."

In a March speech, former Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen complained that "fake families" were "popping up everywhere" on the border.

"And children are being used as pawns," Nielsen said. "In fact, we have uncovered 'child recycling rings,' truly, child re-victimization rings, a process by which innocent children are used multiple times to help aliens gain illegal entry. As a nation, we cannot stand for this."

Customs and Border Protection told NBC News that from Oct. 1 to March 30 it identified more than 2,700 individuals on the southwest border that falsely claimed to be part of a family unit with unaccompanied children.

Immigration advocates, though, have called the DNA "intrusive" and questioned how the information would be used beyond identification.

"This is yet another example of government using generalized security interests to conduct increasingly intrusive measures into the privacy and civil rights of individuals who are seeking asylum at the border," Stephen Kang, a detention attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union's Immigrants' Rights Project, said.

 

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'Express deportations' surge on Mexico's southern border
By Patrick Timmons
MAY 4, 2019
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A migrant woman walks toward Mexico's largest migrant detention center in Tapachula, Chiapas, on Thursday. Photo by Patrick Timmons/UPI.

TAPACHULA, Mexico, May 3 (UPI) -- Government statistics show that Mexico's deportations of migrants from Central America, Cuba and Haiti surged in April, adding to their despair as they wait for days to obtain immigration documents at the border with Guatemala.

In April, Mexico deported more than 14,000 migrants to their countries of origin. That's an increase of 3,000, or 24 percent, over March, according to official but unpublished data obtained by Mexican newspaper La Jornada and confirmed by Mexico's National Migration Institute press office.

In April a year ago,migrants Mexico deported just under 10,000 migrants.

"Maintaining control over our southern border is not a choice -- it's a state obligation," said Olga Sánchez Cordero, Mexico's Interior Minister, at a press conference April 23. "If migrants want to enter our country they have to do so in an orderly and regulated manner by registering with us. And they must respect our laws."

Growing evidence of Mexico's border enforcement is mounting at the country's largest migrant detention center in Tapachula, a city in the southern state of Chiapas and a short distance from the Guatemala border.

Hundreds of migrants gather outside each day to wait for their turn to apply for immigration papers. They hope these documents will give them an opportunity to travel through Mexico to the United States.

"If we don't register with the government, immigration agents can deport us if we try to leave Tapachula," said Eramel Filsamine, 35, a migrant from Gonaïves, Haiti, who is traveling with his wife and their two 6-month-old twin daughters.

The Filsamine family has been traveling for more than two years. First, they flew from Haiti to Chile, where they spent months waiting for immigration papers in Santiago. When they didn't obtain documents in Chile, they decided to head north, hoping to make it to the United States.

"I can't go back to Haiti," Filsamine said. "The police tried to kill me. So now I have to wait. I've been here waiting for an appointment for six days, but I know people who have been waiting even longer."

Filsamine's friend, Julien Desting, 32, is from Cap-Haitien and also is waiting for immigration papers outside the detention center. Desting and his wife have two daughters, ages 8 and 4d. Filsamine and Desting did not know each other in Haiti, but met in Chile two years ago.

"Now we are renting a house together in Tapachula while we wait for papers," Desting said. "Our wives are at home with the children. Sometimes we don't have enough money for food, but when we do, we try to cook chicken and fish because it reminds us of home."

As Filsamine, Desting and hundreds of other migrants waited to apply for papers that give them a legal foothold in Mexico, three buses filled with migrants and escorted by a convoy of federal police left through the detention center's main gates.

"Those buses are filled with Cuban men who are going to be deported from Tapachula's airport," said Jose Antonio Román, a lawyer who was waiting outside the detention center, where his clients are being held.

"I've won stays of deportation for my Cuban clients from the federal court here. But I'm also learning authorities are deporting them in violation of the court order," Roman said.

As the buses passed, a group of agitated Nicaraguan women approached Filsamine and Desting. "Don't sign anything they give you," said one woman who declined to provide her name. "If you sign their papers, they will deport you," she said.

Advocates in southern Mexico say immigration agents are pressuring migrants to sign "voluntary removal" documents without knowing their contents and without knowing they have a right to a lawyer's advice.

"There's a total absence of due process guarantees and respect for rights," said Salva Lacruz, a coordinator at the Fray Matías de Córdova Human Rights Center in Tapachula.

At a press conference Thursday convened by the Fray Matías Center, a collective of migrant advocates presented a report about Mexico's immigration enforcement since the large caravan of migrants left Honduras in October. The collective said mass deportations have become more common since January after another large caravan formed in Honduras.

"These are express deportations," said Carlos Cotera, the Tapachula-based director of the Jesuit Migrant Service and a participant in the human rights monitoring mission. Cotera said the deportations have increased even more since 1,200 Cubans broke out of the detention center two weeks ago.

Mexico's surging deportations have surprised migration policy experts. When President Andrés Manuel López Obrador took office in December, he vowed that Mexico would welcome migrants and respect their human rights, a sharp departure from the detention and deportation policy of his predecessor, Enrique Pena Nieto.

The new government decided to offer migrants humanitarian visas, allowing them to travel freely throughout Mexico and leave the country. But after issuing more than 10,000 of them in two months, the government shuttered Tapachula's humanitarian visa office in January.

That move stranded thousands of migrants on Mexico's southern border because they have no legal way to leave Tapachula and cross the country.

"Certainly, the Mexican government is doing more enforcement over a year ago," Ariel Soto, associate policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C., said in a telephone interview as he compared this year's data to last year.

At the end of March, and because of unprecedented numbers of migrants apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol, President Donald Trump threatened to close the U.S.-Mexico border, saying that Mexico's government had to do more to stop migration north.

"Mexico's president and the interior minister have said publicly they do not want a contentious relationship with the United States and they want to work together," Soto said. "And now it's clear the Mexican government's response has been more immigration enforcement."

 

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Trump names Mark Morgan as head of ICE
By Daniel Uria
May 5, 2019
Trump-names-Mark-Morgan-as-head-of-ICE.jpg

Mark Morgan was named head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Sunday. Photo courtesy U.S. Customs and Border Protection

May 5 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump on Sunday named Mark Morgan as the new head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Trump hailed Morgan, a former FBI agent and chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, as a "true believer and American Patriot" as he introduced him as the newest leader of the agency.

"I am pleased to inform all of those who believe in a strong, fair and sound immigration policy that Mark Morgan will be joining the Trump Administration as the head of our hard working men and women of ICE," Trump wrote on Twitter.

Morgan had previously served as chief of the U.S. Border Patrol, including the last few months of the Obama administration, before being asked to resign days after Trump took office in January 2017 while facing criticism regarding his qualifications.

Morgan has publicly endorsed Trump's declaration of a national emergency at the border, including support for the wall.

"The president had no choice, Congress has failed, they continue to fail," Morgan said in a February interview with CNN.

The Trump administration has been seeking to fill the position of ICE director since the former acting directer, Thomas Homan, retired in June of last year.

Trump withdrew his nomination of then-Acting ICE Director Ronald Vitiello to permanently lead the agency last month, saying he wanted to go in a "tougher direction."

Kirstjen Nielsen left as the Homeland Security security last month reportedly because she did not do enough to secure the nation's southern border with Mexico. She was replaced by Kevin McAleenan, who served as the Customs and Border Protection commissioner.

 
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